How We Self Destruct

By George Handlery, on December 7th, 2016

According to a fable, states defeat their adversary because of their superior means. Thus, large countries cream small ones and advanced systems overcome the badly armed and backward. Indeed, superior means help to contemplate a victory parade in the outclassed victim’s capital. The calculation is not always water tight and fails to explain all victories. History has examples when the theoretically superior fell to a less advanced adversary.

The most desirable conquest is one that is achieved with non-military means. If an asymmetric physical encounter is required to achieve a goal, it is of advantage if the foe is prevented from mobilizing his means. Power might speak loudly, but at war its worth is limited by the readiness to use it. Even the best weapons are useless if they stay in the armory, or if hesitancy deprives them of their punch.

Advanced societies, especially those of Western Europe, and since the election to a diminishing extent the USA, are open to reverses. These are not expressions military inadequacy because they are located in the psychological realm.

Through infiltration, the demographic pressure on Europe’s developed countries is rising. Islamist inspired demands swell to challenge, through the largely illegal settlers, their social and economic order. These, and their multi-culture infected native advocates, demand an equal say and economic support for an unlimited number of unemployables. The claim is completed with the assertion of immunity from the law and the indigenous’ way of life. Concurrently, sovereignty is also being curtailed. Migration at will is depicted as a right that supersedes the law and ignores the idea that a country that is unable to control its borders is no country. Meanwhile the UN’s new General Secretary proclaims “migration is not the problem, it is the solution”. Count on much moralizing pressure to come from that direction.

Power not used is power abused. By that standard, Europe, shielded by NATO, had during the cold war abused its power -while it condemned the military efforts of the US whose for-free protection it enjoyed. The under-use of power continues, and it threatens our civilization. The multicultural idealization of the foe – the modern version of “the Noble savage” – and the denial of the possibility of threats continue in the face of an ongoing invasion.

The real threat comes not from African and Near Eastern masses that demand access to green pastures. Note that, being resolute, tiny Israel holds the line against Arab states, while the zone “west of Vienna” totters under less pressure. Thus the question: why is Western Europe –not Central Europe- unable to exploit its 500-million mass and advanced technology to protect its borders, to uphold its legal order, and to maintain internal security?

Ironically, Europe is being defeated because of its principles that express a democratic substance. We identify several errors of confusion. One is that democracy’s tolerance and its systemic exchange of governing crews works, because both government and opposition share values. They also think in terms of a political struggle waged according to rules and carried out within the confines of set regulations among opponents that are not enemies. Those that now threaten Europe’s internal order not only do not understand this, they also reject the principles that explains their host’s progress – which makes it attractive to migrants.

The elites that govern the entities of Europe – the point applies to the USA- share a conviction. It is that their concept of improvement-through-change oriented order, where the majority can become a minority and the minority the majority, is rational. Ergo, it is assumed, that it will be supported by anyone acquainted to it. While this is a reasonable assumption, the generalized projection of a local value ignores a crucial fact. Open society’s order and its economic laissez faire, are a cultural phenomenon –and that limits their attraction.

Some cultures, in pursuit of a self- upgrade, and intent to emulate success strategies, had adapted to the system pioneered in the West. Others proved to be resistant to it. Within “Europe” Russia’s leaders –whether Czars or Commissars- have defied the Continent’s order. Prejudice, supported by religion, ignorance, a skewed concept of dignity, make those affected incompatible with the demands of an advanced order.

Ignoring this, and concessions to wants that had made the migrants’ home countries moribund, is a form of self destruction. The myth that, useful values are persuasive, and that all cultures are “equal”, connects to a further superstition which robs modern societies from the ability of self defense.

Above, we saw the case made by cultural relativists who plead that, there being no threat, a “defense” is superfluous. The thesis appears attached to another fallacy of those that would rather be PC than right. In the infected circles, it is accepted that, defending entities incorporating Enlightenment values, means shielding a system whose achievement proves its guilt. Indeed, the defense of something that is “bad” is morally wrong. Thus the question is whether the allegation is true that the West is “guilty”, must atone, and that its success is a profit of crimes. Presumably, a form of that “atonement” is a newly floated idea; it suggests to extend, upon arrival the right to vote to migrants in the places where they settle.

Allegedly, imperialist exploitation made the West rise. By impoverishing the Third World, the blood sucker achieved prosperity. (Note that the theme that the successful are that because they rob the poor, is a key Marxist concept.)This ignores that in the past –the Ottoman Empire is an example- colonialism has also been practiced by non-Western entities such as, recently Japan. Also, backward states -Russia- have colonized without becoming thereby modern and wealthy. Furthermore, escaping colonial status has benefited societies such as South Korea, while others like North Korea, had remained deficient. It is revealing that in the late fifties the ROK’s wealth matched Africa’s. Thereafter, a gap opened reflecting sound strategies of development, respectively of stagnation and decline.

Another reminder comes to mind to shred the thesis that, defending the guilty thieving West’s way of life, lacks moral legitimacy. When it happened, Western colonial adventures were preceded by a process of economic upswing, effective governance, and the growth of knowledge. This means that the ability to colonize expressed earlier advance. Simply put, the better cannon preceded expansion and it was not its consequence. Conquest is a product of the success of Europe’s western fringe that overcame then prevailing the global practice of the static and idealized model for man’s associations. Strength came from the selective break with tradition, and the invention of modernization. Thereafter, newly created power was used to subjugate the backward; wealth and power expressed itself in colonies. It was not the control of dependent lands that led to growth, good governance, and wealth.

Lastly, overriding those Third World related concepts that undermine the political class’ will to defend its civilization, a more general factor that justifies giving ground deserves mention. It is the very Western-embedded notion that, violence is abhorrent even if it is exercised in provoked self-defense. The origins go to the principle of democracies that internally violence is to be avoided because, among decent men, a political solution can always be found. Discovering it is what distinguishes the statesman from the political hack.

Through time, we have developed systems that could afford to entitle a client class to benefits unearned by their societal contribution. To some, citizenship ceased to be a “giving” with balanced “taking”, and degenerated into a right to “take”. Upholding a way of life’s values might involve a sacrifice. More convenient ere seeming compromises that amount to piecemeal capitulation. Sacrifice has become an alien concept, indeed, to some, an abusive demand that violates basic rights. This places a halo around surrender which thereby is attributed the character of a virtue.

During the Cold War the glorification of submission produced the “rather red than dead” slogan –which innocently ignored the cost of being “red”. In today’s application, the idealized version of “conscientious objection” to respond to any crossing of “red lines”, softens the response to transgressions that flow from a violence-centered world view. If the understated reaction to encroachments continues to be inadequate, then we will be taught a lesson: The meek do not inherit the earth because they wind up in chains.